Man this is really annoying. The trade swap we have with the Knicks means that if they have a higher pick then we can swap it. Now, if I told a non-NBA fan that the rockets had a better record than Knicks, he'd probably think we wold swap. Not so, the Rockets are out of the playoffs in the West and the Knicks are actually the sixth seed.

Basically picks are done on a lottery/non-lottery basis. If you aren't in the playoffs, then you are automatically in the lottery and in for a (tiny) chance of a first 3 picks. Houston had the best record out of all lottery teams, so we are in 14th place. If you are in the playoffs, then picks 15-30 are determined by reverse order of record, so East's seeds 6, 7, 8 would be 17, 16, 15th pick in the draft.

This is actually a fair system, except in the Rockets case this year obviously (since it would be disadvantageous if a team could be in the playoffs for the 6th seed AND have a top 10 pick or something).